APEC Energy Week
August 23-27, 1997, Edmonton, Alberta (Canada)

Coal and the Future of Energy Professionals

"In terms of additions to energy generation capacity in North America over the next 20 years, 90 % of it will come from coal. The reasons being that the United States alone has more coal in its reserves than there is oil in the entire world.
Note that at the rate with which we are consuming oil, our reserves will run out by 2040 -- that's alarmingly within our lifetime. This energy will not be generated via the old combustion , steam turbine methods which as everyone is well aware emits way too much acidic gases into the atmosphere. Rather, newer, cleaner and much more efficient technology, using gas turbines (both industrial and aeroderivative), cogeneration and steam injection cycles and gasification will be used.

As well, generation of energy from wastes such as pet coke, post consumer plastics, and used tires is receiving a lot of attention, although there are a lot of environmental, economic and political factors to take into account. A very important factor to consider is that over the past 15 years there has been an extensive amount of research and commercialization in the North America, Europe and Asia by some really big heavy weights such as General Electric. Also included are all the other huge gas turbine manufacturers such as Siemens, Westinghouse, Rolls Royce, Shell, Dow Chemical, Texaco, Bechtel, EPRI, Edison Electric, Conoco -(Dupont's Energy Division).

What this boils down to as far as future energy professionals in Canada is that along with nuclear research and development, there should be a large amount of research and development opportunities as well as commercialization opportunities in coal."
(Vera Kan, youth delegate, APEC Energy Week)

Energy | Description | Agenda | Issues | Youth Report | Quotes

asia@tgmag.ca